I had the opportunity to sit down with Vincenzo Natali this past weekend at Denver's sci-fi and fantasy convention StarFest. Who is Vincenzo Natali, you may ask? Along with being a storyboard artist on several cartoons, he is an independent writer and director (Cube). His latest movie, Splice, was picked up by Warner Bros. and will have a national release on June 4th. The movie stars Adrien Brody and Sarah Polley.
Synopsis Two young scientists (Brody and Polley) achieve fame by splicing human DNA with the DNA of different animals to create a new creature. In the process they ignore their society's ethical and legal boundaries. The scientists name their creature "Dren", which is initially a deformed female infant. However, it rapidly develops into a beautiful but deadly winged human-chimera.
For the interview on Splice click on the full picture of "Dren" below.
Along with talking about his new film, we talked a lot about comic book movies. He expanded on his earlier quote (
from a previous article by RorMachine ) about doing a big screen adaptation of
Swamp Thing.
When I asked him to expand on what drew him to Alan Moore's version:
"He really kind of pushed it in this kind of strange philosophical, ecological direction and took the character and, kind of, completely reinvented what the essence of that character is. That, for me, is the version that would interest me most, personally."
One of the biggest hurdles would be obtaining the rights to the character:
"I have explored what the rights issues are and they're a bit complicated"
The film rights are now with MGM which is in financial ruin. Once someone buys them, it can be pursued but even then Natali says
"it won't be easy." I do find it very interesting that Joel Silver is the producer that bought
Splice and is also very interested in bringing
Swamp Thing back.
We also talked about what other CBM's he would like to make. Along with doing an adaptation of DC's
Camelot 3000 he touched base on a character that has already been done:
"I was always strongly disappointed, severely disappointed by "Judge Dredd". I feel like that there is a great "Judge Dredd" movie that has yet to be made. So, that would certainly interest me a great deal."
We touched base on the possibility of DC bringing together their live action superhero universe:
"I think what Marvel is doing is so brilliant. You know, turning what they did in the comic book world, which is fully integrated universe of different characters; translating that into the film world."
He wouldn't mind the same approach being taken with
Swamp Thing and the supernatural characters that he came across such as Deadman or John Constantine.
Splice looks to be an amazing movie and is getting rave reviews from its showing at Sundance. It is a modern twist on the Frankenstein tale that pushes the envelope both ethically and sexually. I believe Natali would be an excellent candidate for a CBM and is someone who understands the genre. You can hear more from Vincenzo Natali by clicking the link below.